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PTQ-Detroit had 128 people attend this past Saturday. One of the 128 would go on to Houston for the Pro Tour. I was certainly not that one. I had decided to run a rogue deck that treated me quite well at Origins. However, much to my dismay, the metagame this three weeks post-origins is incredibly different than it was during the early hours of the complete OBC format. In Columbus during the July 4th weekend, Quite Roar dominated; you had to play it or play to beat it. Now, there are two major decks contending for “the best” – Mono-Black Control and U/G Threshold. I’m never playing a rogue deck in OBC again.

Still, even with these adjustments and a moderate amount of play testing, I went 0-2. Mono-Black Control is just too…controlling! It obviously dominated the environment. The top 8 Saturday consisted of at least 3 MBC decks and at least 3 U/G (I didn’t see the exact breakdown as I was rooting for my friend Doug who ended up making it to the semi-finals with MBC). Regardless, there is no room for rogue decks in the environment at all.

Throughout the day, I had seen everything from the dominating two archetypes to White Weenie to the Time Stretch

deck. Nothing except MBC and U/G came even close to being considered “tier 1.” It’s very disappointing to see a field filled with so many cards with awesome synergy to degenerate into a field that requires you to be playing one of the two power houses. Even then, if you meet the mirror, it’s just a coin flip to see who wins! During the quarter-finals, Doug met another MBC player, Spencer, and won 2-1 mostly because games one and three he pulled out the Mind Sludge

first. Both players were joking the entire match about how little skill really was involved in such a match.

Regardless, I guess the moral of the story is that if you intend to do well in OBC these next few weeks, run one of the dominating archetypes. There just isn’t room for creativity anymore. That will have to wait until the Extended season starts. For deck lists of the top eight players, go to www.professional-events.com.

Now let’s go to the props and slops for this event:

Slops--To Vince who I had considered a friend until he called a judge on me drawing before I sacked to Braids; a reasonable call, yes, but not the most polite thing when you’re friends and in round one.-To the people who called themselves “dealers” and only traded you half value for your cards when they didn’t own a booth or work for the store. Get real guys!

Props--To the judges for making very fair rulings and running the tournament smoothly-To the judge that gave Vince an unsportsmanship warning when he called me on Braids – that hit the spot-To Pandemonium

Games for hosting the event and for trading me the Unglued lands ultra tech for a good deal before the tournament-To Doug for offering to pick me up some Subway-To my second match opponent, Tony Chopcinski, for being polite about stomping me into the ground with a hopper.

All in all, it was a good event if you discount the lack of creativity. Go out there and play test some rogue decks, people, the environment needs to change! I just wish I thought it could.

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